


Lousy With Politics

by byzantienne



Category: Belgariad/Malloreon Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byzantienne/pseuds/byzantienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series. A young Silk visits Tol Honeth. (Silk/Bethra, Silk/Porenn UST. No warnings, save for Tolnedran dancing.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lousy With Politics

**Author's Note:**

> I tried for slash, but this fandom is apparently unslashable. Hopefully het UST and extra politics is a good substitute.
> 
> Written for Yvi

 

 

Tol Honeth is lousy with politics, which makes Kheldar feel right at home, even despite the distinct lack of either fens or anything so comfortingly friendlily murderous as Javelin's Academy. Espionage is never going to be a going concern here in the center of the Empire - Tolnedrans simply clink too much, weighted with coins and babbling of commerce, to adequately hide in the shadows, metaphorically or otherwise.

He suspects he's beginning to think like a Tolnedran, just a little. Product and coinage, and at least it'll make Ambar of Kotu sound better; he's got the the posh version of the Drasnian accent down cold, but he still catches himself spouting bits of jargon that an up-and-coming merchant scion just wouldn't _know_. Actually _living_ inside an assumed identity is vastly more challenging than doing one for an afternoon's scathing evaluation from Javelin, or for an evening's worth of particularly Drasnian seduction. The problem with the latter being that you hardly ever knew if they were putting you on as much as you were them.

 _Drasnians._ Sneakthieves and liars, the lot of them.

Oh, now, that was _too_ Tolnedran, even for Ambar, who probably dreamed about Nedra and dancing girls with bolts of finest Issan silk wound around themselves when he bothered to dream at all. Man thought he wanted to be a Tolnedran, why else would he have moved to Tol Honeth?

Ignoring the fact that Ambar rode around in the head of Prince Kheldar of Drasnia, who couldn't get out of the aforementioned country fast enough to suit. Ignoring that entirely. Of course.

Kheldar isn't going to think about that. He's been telling himself strenuously ever since he said goodbye to Porenn - at least he hadn't made a scene, that was something, however marginal - that he wasn't going to think about it. He's going to go out into Tol Honeth and make Ambar of Kotu some money. Live it up. He's barely twenty, he's not hideous for a man with a very Drasnian nose, and he's absolutely brilliant. Even Javelin had complimented him. Once or twice. So it should be easy.

***

He ends up at a Vordue party, which he counts as a success in his book. Ambar of Kotu, just off the proverbial boat, snagging an invite to a soirée at the sumptuous mansion of a major Tolnedran nobleman. No matter if he's here as the embarrassing common paramour of one of the Vordue lord's nieces, he's _here_ , and he'll make some damn good contacts while he can. Someone in here doubtlessly wants to ship silks or jewelry to the Alorn countries, and Ambar is their man.

And while Ambar wheels and deals, Kheldar will just hang back and listen to the politics all around him.

He's been at it two hours or so, and they've brought out the apertif wines - Kheldar's careful to only sip his, no sense in getting soused when he's got hints of acquiring a spice caravan of his very own - when he finds himself neatly cordoned off in a quiet corner, abandoned by his current merchantile conquest who has gone off to seek the privy. For company he has a tall woman in a green dress which is probably the height of Tol Honeth fashion. It's ridiculous enough to be, with all those adornments and draperies.

The woman wears it with a sort of amused tolerance which is intriguing.

"I see you, too, have been deserted by our erstwhile hosts," he murmurs, to pass the time.

She turns her head just enough to take him in. She has the kind of gaze which is expressly fashioned to make you know she's judging you. Kheldar will have to copy it and see if it works as well on a man.

"Your nose twitches when you're getting away with something," she says.

Kheldar claps a hand over the offending organ theatrically, and grins as best as he can through the instinctive flinch at someone _catching_ him. "Seven Gods, you must be imagining it, I'm sure," he says. "I never get away with anything."

She doesn't laugh - bad sign - but she does extend a gloved hand to be bent over and barely brushed with courtier's lips, which is better. "If that's true," she says to him as he straightens, "I'd be exceptionally surprised. Ambar, is it?"

"Of Kotu," Kheldar agrees. "And you, most gracious and observant of women?"

There's the laugh; she wasn't expecting that much flattery. "Bethra. And turn off the charm, Ambar. I get enough of that from Tolnedrans."

"Your countrymen certainly know how to say very little very well."

"And Drasnia is completely full of cutting wits, I'm sure."

"No better than the wit here."

"How did you end up at this dismal affair?"

"The story would bore you. I'm willing to trade it for yours, though."

Bethra shakes her head, which makes the long earrings she wears clink against themselves. "Let's not bother one another with pretty lies. Surely even your tongue gets tired." Her smile is completely inappropriate for anyone in public, not to mention anyone in a formal gown. Kheldar attempts to avoid blushing, manages to turn the impulse into a lascivious grin of his own.

"Never when it counts, Bethra."

She laughs again - he must be winning here, though what he's winning he isn't sure just yet - and indicates the room with a sweep of her hand. Slow lines of Tolnedrans crawl up and down it, engaged in some kind of gavotte.

"Do you dance?" Bethra asks.

Kheldar panics. Does he dance? Technically he dances, and with more grace than his lordship the Duke of Vordue, by the looks of it, but he is vastly unfamiliar with the gavotte or whatever this particular Tolnedran party affectation is called, and for some reason he really doesn't want to look stupid just at this moment. This is the best conversation he's had since Drasnia.

"With you, I dance," he decides - such bravery! Are you sure you're not a Cherek, Kheldar! -, and catches Bethra's hand in his own.

***

It's rapidly apparent that it's not his skill with feet or tongue that Bethra's interested in on the dance floor, but rather his ability to be offensively Drasnian, mercantile, and flamboyantly better at acquiring contracts to move goods than the Horbite nobleman who had been Bethra's date to this soirée. When the aforementioned individual storms up to them as they swoop up and down the lines of dancers, his face red and fuming, Bethra effusively introduces Kheldar as her very good new friend, who has done all of these _simply wonderful_ things, and he's only been in Tol Honeth a few weeks, haven't you Kheldar. She simpers. It's amazing.

He plays along, of course, and the Horbite comes fairly close to taking a swing at him before opting to storm out of the party loudly instead. It causes a bit of a stir, and there's an entire crowd of rubbernecking Tolnedrans circling around the pair of them like sharks.

Kheldar grins. "I have to thank you," he murmurs to Bethra. "They'll all want to buy from me now."

"The thanks are mutual," Bethra replies, almost too light to hear - and did her fingers twitch? No, he's imagining it, there's no chance she'd know the secret language - and then smiles brilliantly. "After all, he hadn't spoken to Vordue at all yet, and now he won't tonight."

That little statement changes quite a bit of what he knows so far about this woman, and since he's been party to her scheme already, Kheldar takes his chance. "You are as bad as a Drasnian, gracious lady."

"Oh, I know," Bethra says, her eyes bright, and then the crowds descend and they're swept apart - but it's enough. Life in Tol Honeth may just prove to be even more interesting than life at home.

 


End file.
